Or that Ken Warby is the fastest man on water. He never got to the 320 mph Donald Campbell was doing when he was killed but the record still stands after thirty years.
QUOTE=hugh m;5631772]We were lucky enough to tour Joe Gertler's shop on Long Island years ago, and his son Joe Jr. showed us s****book photos of his dad enclosing the wheels on the Bluebird … Joe is on here from time to time, I think. Would be neat to hear his storys...[/QUOTE] Here are the only known photos of THE BLUEBIRD with the enclosed wheels, in Dad's Shop, “Raceway Garage,” in the Bronx! I Still have Dad's Original 4 x 5 black & white negatives, in which great detail can be seen. Someone remarked at the car's amazing size. *Unfortunately we had loaned a lot of the original photos and negs to an auto museum to make copies for their files. But when they returned the box, the BEST photo of this Bluebird was lost<v:shape id=Picture_x0020_2 style="VISIBILITY: visible; WIDTH: 12pt; HEIGHT: 12pt; mso-wrap-style: square" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="0" o:spid="_x0000_i1025"> <v:imagedata o:***le="0" src="file:///C:\Users\Joe\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.gif"></v:imagedata></v:shape>. It was a shot of the car on a tractor-trailer special flatbed hauler outside Dad’s shop, when it was delivered to him for the work. Sitting on the street, with normal size cars in the photo, it looked to be half a block long!!! Sure wish I had that photo.. Dad had around a thousand of his black & white snapshot photos of most of his 200+ original built race cars, sprints, midgets Indy car work, Custom car & engine work for Z.A-Duntov Raymond Loewy (spelling?), numerous exotic race boats for Candy magnate George Schraft, Guy Lombardo, and lots of wealthy celebrities & famous sportsmen & heirs like Tommy Manville, Jay Paul Lilly, ty****s, and wild customs, stretched Auburn Speedster/married to Duesenberg Touring car engine! In the"old" shop he had all these photos thumb-tacked to the walls from floor to ceiling covering MOST of the four office walls. When we moved, I took them all down. Except for a small number of brittle ones that crumbled, I still have MOST of them. <O></O> See my website for lots of the old photos, at:<O></O> www.memaerobilia.com<O></O> If anybody has any other photos, or magazine pictures, of THE BLUEBIRD with the enclosed wheels, please let me know.<O></O> <O></O>
Thanks Joe, that's a neat part of the history of the car, and your dad., glad you have at least some of the photos.
Just another site with info. on both Campbells: http://www.racingcampbells.com/content/malcolm.asp (Not Sir Malcolm, so it's off topic, but the Commer tipper and trailer = ever optimistic. The 6x6 wrecker is more appropriate: ).
Here's the website with the story on the (ongoing) restoration of the Bluebird that crashed on Coniston Water. There's a lot on this site going right back to the recovery of the wreck. They plan to run it as speed on the lake again! http://www.bluebirdproject.com
Heads up. There is a great deal more about the Campbells and the Bluebirds in the Fall 1964 Automobile Quarterly (Vol. III No. 3). That magazine includes three great articles. Vintageride
I remember seeing the Blue Bird in, I think the 40s. It was traveling with the Fair circit, and woundered how much faster it would have been with a smoother outer surface. The panels were laped and rivited together. It was awsume as a little kid to see.
I am still hoping to find period photos of the Bluebird, with the faired in wheels (as i posted above) in a Completed and finished state. Found this one (Somewhere?) on the Internet, a good while ago. It is very likely from the 1952 International Motor Sports Show exhibit at Grand Central Palace NY. It was not finished early enough to have a photo in the program for that show. But the program did state that the Bluebird has been "completely re-streamlined. in an article in the program, that only featured a photo of the "old style" bluebird. Some people MUST have taken photos of such a famous car, at such a big show? Anybody seen any?
I saw the car in person in 1959 in a small museum south of Daytona owned by Bill Tuttle. Bill Tuttle was a Nascar pioneer that was sitting beside Bill France when Nascar was formed. He had been squeezed out and was running the small museum and had the original Bluebird there. We tried to rent it for a car show in CLearwater FL and he was very nice but said that was the main drawing card to his museum and he couldn't let it go.
The Jalopy Journal
